Life Cycle Assessment of innovative fuel blends for passenger cars with a spark-ignition engine: A comparative approach.

Passenger cars account for 44% of greenhouse gas emissions from transport in the European Union. To align with the European Green Deal by 2050, road transport should develop and deploy alternative technologies to reduce emissions by 90%. In this work, the Life Cycle Assessment methodology was applied to assess the environmental impacts of a medium (C-segment) internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) and a medium (C-segment) battery electric vehicle (BEV). For the ICEV, four innovative petrol blends were considered. These innovative blends consist of petrol and fuels such as fossil ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE), bio-ETBE, bionaphtha, bioethanol, methanol, biomethanol, and e-methanol. After a preliminary selection of biofuel alternatives, all the assessed blends potentially guarantee a slight reduction in climate change (from 0.8% to 10.1%) compared to the reference petrol car. The blend containing bionaphtha contributed the least to climate change. The BEV released about 41% less greenhouse gas emissions than the reference car. Although the ICEV and the BEV showed a reduction in climate change and fossil resources, the picture is less straightforward for the other 14 impact categories.

Automated summary

Passenger cars contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions in the EU, and adopting alternative technologies can help reduce emissions. This study applied a Life Cycle Assessment methodology to compare the environmental impacts of conventional internal combustion engine vehicles with battery electric vehicles. The findings suggest that biofuel blends have the least impact on climate change, while electric vehicles emit 41% less greenhouse gases compared to conventional cars.